The phenomenology of religious purification rituals

The performance of purification rituals existing in almost every religious tradition from the religions of the oldest civilizations to the most advanced universal religions and one of the manifestations of the religious experience of the religionist, emerges as a common religious phenomenon transcending time and space. Moreover; along the history, human beings have lived dependently on the nature they live in; hence, they have believed that natural phenomena like water, fire and earth remove pollution. These tools, which are pure in nature in religions and cultures, were seen as a powerful transformative of the negative into the positive; The belief that contact with them or being exposed to them will turn pollution into purity brought along many practices. This thesis dealing with the view of Religions to the phenomenon of purification from a phenomenological point of view, consists of an introduction and four chapters. After focusing on the subject, importance, purpose and conceptual framework of the research in the introduction, the characteristic features of ritual purification are given in the first chapter. In the second and third chapters, the ritual practices, from the earliest in religious life to the present, carried out by means of water, fire and soil are discussed in detail. To catch the humor (essence) in the understanding of purification, it has been tried to list the most general forms of rituals and descend to the basic views of religions. In the fourth chapter, analysis, synthesis and evaluation has been made from a scientific point of view in the light of the information obtained.